“Nor do we retreat from the established rule that illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction.”
How later courts described this case
- “Nor do we retreat from the established rule that illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction.”
- “An illegal arrest, without more, has never been viewed as a bar to subsequent prosecution nor as a defense to a valid charge”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed February 3, 2021.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
________________
No. 3D21-56
Lower Tribunal No. 14-700
________________
Edward R. Brown,
Appellant,
vs.
The State of Florida,
Appellee.
An appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Gina
Beovides, Judge.
Edward R. Brown, in proper person.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, for appellee.
Before FERNANDEZ, SCALES and HENDON, JJ.
HENDON, J.
Edward R. Brown filed a petition for certiorari seeking review of the
trial court’s order denying post-conviction relief. We treat the petition for
certiorari as an appeal from the denial of a motion for postconviction relief
filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(m) and affirm.
In December 2016, Edward R. Brown was convicted after jury trial
(lower tribunal no. F14-700) of the following: Count 1, robbery with a
firearm (carrying, actual possession, discharge); Count 2, attempted
second degree murder, with a firearm (actual possession and discharge
causing great bodily harm); Count 3, attempted second degree murder with
a firearm (actual possession, threat). He went to trial and was convicted as
charged. Brown qualified at sentencing as a prison releasee reoffender and
as a violent career criminal, and was sentenced to mandatory life on all
counts, to run concurrently, with a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence
on all charges for firearm possession and discharge, also to run
concurrently.
Brown’s convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal.
Brown v. State, 263 So. 3d 1121 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019). Brown subsequently
filed a 3.850(m) motion in which he claimed that the arrest warrant 1 was
1
Three arrest warrants appear in the record. One is a nearly illegible copy
of an unsigned, unfiled warrant. The two valid warrants in the record
include a signed and certified copy filed in Miami-Dade County in 2014, and
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defective because it was not stamped with a court seal for certification, and
argued that as a result it was a void and invalid arrest warrant. He sought
an evidentiary hearing or immediate release. In August 2020, the trial court
denied the motion for failure to state a claim on which relief could be
granted. What Brown files in this Court as a petition for certiorari is an
appeal from the denial of 3.850(m) relief. We find that the record
conclusively refutes the claim.
The valid arrest warrants in the record are signed by a judge, dated,
and stamped with the court seal or certified for service. Further, Florida
courts have consistently applied the good faith exception when the warrant
is “regular on its face and the affidavit upon which it was based was not so
lacking in indicia of probable cause that the officer executing the warrant
could not with reasonable objectivity rely in good faith on the magistrate's
probable cause determination and on the technical sufficiency of the
warrant.” Crain v. State, 914 So. 2d 1015, 1024 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005) (citing
State v. Harris, 629 So. 2d 983, 984 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993)); State v.
Emanuel, 153 So. 2d 839 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963) (holding an arrest warrant is
one sent to Lee County, South Carolina, to extradite Brown to Florida for
the pending charges. We find Brown’s argument, if directed to the one
unsigned and unfiled warrant in the record, is without merit.
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legally insufficient only when it wholly fails to charge an offense as defined
by law).
Finally, we emphasize that the law is clear that even if Brown’s arrest
was illegal, this does not void his convictions or sentence. See, e.g., State
v. Perkins, 760 So. 2d 85, 87 (Fla. 2000) (“Nor do we retreat from the
established rule that illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent
conviction.”) (quoting Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 119 (1975)). See
also Frisbie v. Collins, 342 519, 522 (1952) (“This Court has never
departed from the rule . . . that the power of a court to try a person for
crime is not impaired by the fact that he had been brought within the court’s
jurisdiction by reason of a ‘forcible abduction.’”). See also State v. Tillman,
402 So. 2d 19 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981) (“An illegal arrest, without more, has
never been viewed as a bar to subsequent prosecution nor as a defense to
a valid charge”); Thomas v. State, 494 So. 2d 240 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986).
Affirmed.
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